Dagger's Point (Shadow series) (32 page)

“They have two other children,” Jael continued, glancing sideways at Farryn. “Twins. Markus and Mera are thirteen years old now.”

“Two at one birth,” Farryn marveled. “How wonderful.”

“When a human marries an elf, that’s usually how it works,” Jael told him. “But you
still
haven’t answered my—”

Farryn held up his hand, sighing again.

“The soul keeper,” he said, touching the pendant that hung around his own neck. “Tell me how you came to have it, and why.”

Farryn listened sympathetically while Jael told him about the soul sickness she’d endured all her life, the many remedies they’d tried, and finally the elven passage ritual that had revealed Jael’s mixed blood and incomplete soul. He nodded thoughtfully when Jael recounted her adventures in the dragon’s nest and her discovery of the pendant.

“And wearing the soul keeper healed that lack within you,” Farryn agreed. “Tell me, didn’t you find yourself changed when you wore the soul keeper?”

“Of course I felt changed,” Jael said impatiently. “I could mold stone, I could control my beast-speaking—”

“No,” Farryn said gently. “Changed in other ways, as if finding yourself a different person than the Jaellyn you knew.”

Jael started to retort sharply; then she remembered her inexplicable impatience with Tanis, her shocking inclination to attack him in the dragons’ hill, her uncharacteristic recklessness while fighting the hatchling, even her unexpectedly aggressive seduction—if it could indeed be called that—of Tanis. She felt herself flushing at the thought.

“Well, wouldn’t suddenly having a whole soul change anybody a little?” Jael protested.

“Jaellyn, these amulets are called ‘soul keepers’ because they indeed hold a soul within them,” Farryn said gently. “And the one you wore healed you because it indeed held a soul within it—but that soul was not yours. It belonged to a warrior killed by the dragons, and that warrior has earned the peace of Adraon’s realm. You can’t heal yourself with a stolen soul. If you had been one of us, and entirely lacking a soul of your own, the soul of the slain warrior might have possessed you utterly.”

Jael shivered. It had never occurred to her that she might well be hosting someone else’s soul in her body. And she’d tumbled Tanis, too, while—Jael gulped. The idea was rather disgusting, now that she thought about it.

“I didn’t know it was somebody else’s soul,” Jael said at last.

“I don’t think I’d have dared touch the thing if I’d known. What will you do with it?”

“The Enlightened Ones will conduct ceremonies to appease the soul for the indignities it has suffered, then destroy the soul keeper to free the imprisoned one,” Farryn told her.

Indignities? Jael had the uncomfortable notion that Farryn wasn’t referring to years spent in a dragon’s nest.

“But what about me?” Jael asked. “I don’t want somebody else’s soul, I just want my own. All of it.”

“I have spoken to the Enlightened Ones on your behalf,” Farryn said slowly. “They are deliberating on the problem. The matter is complicated.”

“What’s complicated?” Jael asked indignantly. “I need a whole soul, and your people are the only ones who can give me one. What’s there to deliberate about? Is it because I’m a half-blood?”

“The purity of your blood is not a concern,” Farryn said, guiding her down another of the narrow alleys between buildings. “There have never before been half-bloods among us, but if Donya could bear my daughter, a daughter who carries the gift of stone, you are near enough to our blood. But you must understand that our children are schooled from birth in the conduct of a Kresh warrior under our laws of honor and are not given their souls until they have proven themselves under that code. The bestowing of a soul is not a light matter, and some of the Englightened Ones feel that you have not been properly prepared, being raised among strangers.”

“Strangers?” Jael flushed again, this time with anger. “Those
strangers
were good enough to help you when you came to them, weren’t they? And Mother wasn’t too much of a
stranger
for a night’s tumble, was she?”

“Enough.” Farryn guided Jael through another small alley, and suddenly they were standing at the edge of a cliff.

Jael gasped in wonder at the sight. She’d expected more of the gray stone of the mountain, solid but bleak. Instead, she stood on the edge of one of two cliffs that formed a sort of gateway to a vast green and fertile valley, with a crystal-blue river running between the cliffs and bisecting the lush growth at the valley floor. Jael could see figures moving against the grass of the valley floor, and to her surprise there seemed to be more conventional dwellings there, hutlike structures built of wood instead of stone.

Jael turned around and looked behind her. The dome-shaped stone structures she’d seen literally covered the mountainside, clinging to the stone like the barnacles she’d seen encrusting the hulls of ships who came up the Brightwater to Allanmere from the coast. A few steep, narrow paths wound down the mountainside to the valley floor, and farther along the cliff was an odd arrangement of baskets and boulders hung on thick metal chains, apparently to transport people or goods up and down the mountainside. At the base of the mountain was a larger stone structure projecting slightly from the mountainside, the entire outer surface heavily covered with the carvings Jael had hitherto seen only on the inside of the shelter she’d been in.

“The entrance to our temple,” Farryn said, following Jael’s gaze to the larger structure. “Our Enlightened Ones dwell there.”

“Who lives in the valley?” Jael asked. “I can see people down there.”

“I do,” Farryn told her. “And my mate and my children. Many of the Wind Dancing Clan live there, and all of the Silent Singers as well. The Stone Brothers, what few there are, prefer the mountainside, and I and my family spend our summers here, as it is much like the place where we lived far to the east. But we all go back and forth between the clans as we please. Only the Enlightened Ones live between and apart. I spoke to them on your behalf and acknowledged you of my blood. They examined you, healed you, and returned to the temple without giving an answer to my request.” He sat down on the stone of the cliff’s edge, gesturing to Jael to sit beside him.

Reluctantly Jael sat down.

“The Enlightened Ones, they’re your priests, aren’t they, or mages?” Jael asked. “But why won’t they help me? It’s not my fault I was born in another place with nobody to train me the way they want me trained. It’s not my fault I’m a half-blood, either, or that I was born missing part of my soul.”

“It’s not a matter of fault,” Farryn said gently. “No one knows if what you ask is even possible. Give the Enlightened Ones time. Likely they returned to the temple to commune with Adraon and seek an answer.”

Or they’d simply avoided the uncomfortable issue by making a quick escape, in which case Jael could be sitting on a cliff waiting for a good long time.

“Well, what are Tanis and I supposed to do while we’re wait-ing?” Jael asked. She grimaced. “It’s pretty plain your mate doesn’t want us around, and I’m sure she’s not the only one.” “There are empty houses aplenty on the mountain, such as the one you were inside,” Farryn told her, indicating the thick cluster of dome-shaped structures clinging to the hillside. “We haven’t been a populous folk since before our peoples divided, and those of us who traveled east dwindled severely. I’ll see that you’re made comfortable. No one will treat you unkindly. You and Tanis can hunt with us. I’ll welcome the chance to know you and to hear how you and the lady Donya—High Lady Donya— have fared in the years since I met her.”

Jael grimaced but said nothing. What was there to say or, for that matter, to do? She and Tanis had journeyed to the other side of the world to find these people, the only ones who could give her a whole soul, and she’d found them. She’d asked for help. What more could she do?

Farryn took her hand, and Jael could feel the iron strength in his fingers. She gazed at their joined hands, so like and yet unlike, his six-fingered hand and her more slender five-fingered one, both with the same dark tanned skin and wiry muscles. The solidity of stone beneath her was a comforting presence, sweetly familiar, but in her mind echoed the ponies’ discontent with their hard stone shelter, and some part of her longed for green leaves and the scent of moonflowers and moss on the wind. She’d balanced miserably on the dagger’s edge between elf and human for years; how much longer could she teeter precariously on the dagger’s point between the world she’d known and a very part of herself she could almost, but not quite, touch? Gods, how much better it would have been if she’d never tasted Bluebright or found the amulet in the dragon’s nest, never felt that wonderful, heady wholeness.

Still, she was closer to her goal than she had ever come in her life—well, other than when she’d worn the soul keeper she’d found in the dragon’s nest. And she’d waited over twenty years; what harm could a few more days do? And what choice did she have, in any event?

“I’ll wait,” Jael said reluctantly. “But not for long.”

“If the Enlightened Ones don’t answer soon, I will approach them again,” Farryn promised. “Come, you’ll wish to eat and”—he sniffed slightly, then grinned apologetically—“bathe. It’s as well for my people that you do not go about smelling of the plains folk. I’ll see that your belongings are returned to you as well. No warrior should be without her weapons.”

He guided her back through the lanes between the buildings, and Jael marveled again that they met no one for some time. Farryn had spoken, though, of the numbers of dwellings that sat empty; likely the Kresh grouped together in one section of the cluster and whole areas went uninhabited. This time it seemed to Jael, although she couldn’t be sure, that Farryn took her on a different route through the dwellings. This time, too, Jael saw a few Kresh here and there, standing in front of dwellings or going about their business through the alleys. Each one stopped to stare at her, and although Jael saw no hostility on any of the faces, neither could she read welcome or friendliness there.

Though the structures appeared identical but for their size, Farryn led her unerringly to one particular dwelling. A few skins hung drying on frames outside the door flap, and two children, a tall boy a few years younger than Jael and a slender, long-boned girl of about Mera’s age, sat outside, too, both painstakingly carving designs into polished bones. They stood when Farryn stepped into view, saying nothing, but staring intently at Jael all the while.

“Jaellyn, I make known to you my son Lainan and my daughter Savela,” Farryn said. “Lainan, Savela, I make known to you my daughter Jaellyn.”

“I greet you, my sister,” Savela said almost eagerly, her eyes flickering back and forth from Jael’s pointed ears to her narrow hands. Like Lidaya, Savela did not extend her hand; Jael forced her own hand back down to her side. It didn’t seem to be a Kresh custom.

“I greet you, my sister,” Lainan said, but his voice was cold and hard as stone.

A little stung by Lainan’s hostility—what harm had she ever done him?—Jael stood a little straighter. She turned to Savela first, and, much to the younger girl’s surprise, embraced her.

“I’m proud to meet you, my sister,” Jael said, although technically, by matrilineal elven standards, her sire’s children by another woman were only considered cousins. Savela stiffened for just a moment, then awkwardly returned the embrace.

Jael stifled a grin as she turned to Lainan. Pride forced him to endure her embrace, although he did not return it, nor did he acknowledge Jael’s greeting. As soon as Jael released him, Lainan stepped back, holding aside the tent flap and waiting mutely for Jael and Farryn to enter. Savela followed Jael and Farryn inside, but Lainan only dropped the door flap closed behind them, remaining outside.

Farryn’s dwelling was half again as large as the structure Jael had awakened in, and brightly lit by fat lamps set into niches in the round walls. The stone floor of the dwelling was warmly strewn with furs, and a large rock in the firepit radiated both light and heat so that the dwelling was cozily warm. Besides the ornate carvings on the interior of the stone dome, there were other decorations: small statuettes of carved stone, bone, and horn; a dragon’s skull, carefully polished; clay bowls filled with sparkling stones, possibly gems. Storage baskets almost encircled the dwelling at the base of the walls. There were several sleeping pits instead of one, and in one of them, an infant of indeterminate sex was cuddled companionably with a wolf pup.

Tanis was there, curled up in one of the sleeping pits and apparently asleep. Lidaya was adding what looked like a handful of herbs to the pot hanging from a tripod over the glowing stone; she looked up only briefly as Jael and Farryn entered, but when Jael sat down she silently handed her a bowl of what turned out to be a thick, spicy stew. Savela sat down beside Jael, although she had apparently already eaten, as she shook her head when Lidaya gestured at the pot of stew.

“My youngest son, Dellan,” Farryn said proudly, picking up both the baby and the wolf cub. Farryn sat down beside Jael, miraculously managing both the infant and cub plus the bowl of stew he accepted from the still-silent Lidaya.

“Let me take him for you,” Jael offered, surprised when Farryn handed her the baby, much to Lidaya’s silent but nonetheless obvious disapproval. Dellan roused, gazed up at the stranger holding him, screwed up his tiny face as if unsure whether to make a fuss or not, then sighed and nestled comfortably into Jael’s lap, gazing at her curiously.

My brother,
Jael thought. Dellan was an amiable baby, allowing Jael to examine his tiny six-fingered hands and six-toed feet without protest, only squirming a little when she traced the smooth, round tops of his ears. Jael, however, found him fascinating. She’d seldom seen babies; her friends at the Guild of Thieves, of course, never brought their children to the Guildhouse, and among the elves barrenness was common, and births rare.

Before she realized what she was doing, Jael took a well-chewed piece of meat from her mouth and fed it to the baby, who gurgled delightedly. Jael glanced up at Lidaya guiltily but was surprised to see the woman’s expression soften, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her lips. Lidaya met Jael’s eyes and gave her the briefest of nods, then returned to stirring the stew.